


we're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

by RyanHollywood



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Attempt at Humor, M/M, Pining Levi, graphic descriptions of conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanHollywood/pseuds/RyanHollywood
Summary: In which Eren tries to talk to Levi, and Levi accidentally creates a meme.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Went back to edit this mess bc this fic got a weird amount of attention and wow! I hate this. Although, it was kinda hilarious to look back into this too because I got into bnha months after.

It started with one slip. One fatal slip. Levi was usually good at hiding his crush on a certain green eyed teen named Eren Jaeger. Hell, they've barely ever exchanged 5 words with each other, and he was content at keeping his crush a secret until he finally graduated and ditched town and left nothing but a trail of dust behind. But today was not that day.

Levi was putting in the code for his locker to dump the books from the last period, begrudgingly mentally preparing himself for the next period, when all of a sudden an Eren jumped up from right next to him. Now, Levi wasn't used to being caught off guard, much less startled (and the rapid beating of his heart was only a reaction to that and nothing else), but Eren was one stealthy motherfucker for someone whose footsteps were louder than that of an elephant's, and whose voice tended to carry through the hall because he had never learned to judge what a normal speaking volume was.

"Hey, Levi!"

The locker door was slammed shut and the bang echoed across the crowded hall.

"The fuck do you want, Bright Eyes?" Levi snapped irritatedly at Eren (hey, he never said anything about being nice to his crush). It wasn't until Eren's mouth practically dropped through the floor and landed in the basement that Levi realized that something was wrong.

"Bright Eyes?" Eren echoed back. Yep, first words he'd ever said to his crush in a year and he already fucked up.

See, Bright Eyes is nickname Levi had silently given to Eren the first time he'd caught a glimpse of his gigantic eyes. He could swear that he had never seen eyes this large and bright anywhere except for in those animated Japanese cartoons Hanji and Mike loved so much. He also swore to himself that he'd rather tear out his own teeth one by one than ever say those words out loud.  
Whatever, Levi was mostly living off of tea anyway.

Eren was glued to floor like a G.I. Joe, still staring at him, but his stunned look slowly morphed into fear, which probably meant that Levi's face had done that thing where it made him look like a mass murderer about to go in for his 50th kill, i.e. Eren, uncaring for any witnesses.

Fuck.

The witnesses.

The entire hall had fallen deathly silent, and Levi wasn't sure whether it had been that way since the loud bang of his locker or if it had been because of Eren's outdoor-slash-concert voice.

Levi's eyes swept through the silent crowd and without a word he turned his back on Eren and left.

 

* * *

 

The next day was arguably the worst day in Levi's life. Admittedly, although Levi was no psychic - that was more Erwin's forte anyways -, he had an inkling that no one would gloss over the incident from yesterday, no matter how afraid they were of him (after all, Levi was scientifically proven to be the strongest person in the entire county, and was also blessed with the face of a serial killer, so they had every right to be scared). And yet he still decided to go to school. So, honestly, he was the only one to blame.

When he had parked his car and stepped on the school grounds, everything seemed absolutely fine, until he opened the school doors and was met with posters covering every surface of the walls.

Levi looked around in bewilderment when he noticed that about half of them had what seemed like Eren's driver's license photo (where did they get that?) plastered on them along with a caption that said "Have you seen Bright Eyes?" whilst the other half had an ad on laser eye surgery on them.

Whoever had come up with these designs, had a terrible sense of humor. But they also seemed to have a lot of time on their hands as well as access to the school, which, weird.

Anyhow. So much for avoiding the kid, Levi groused and vowed to punch the culprit so hard, that they'd be sent into the stratosphere. He briskly made his way through the throngs of people, who avoided any and all eye contact with him, and to his locker.  
Someone had made the effort of taping Eren's face specifically onto his locker and left the surrounding lockers untouched, and Levi stared the picture down for a second before (carefully) ripping it off and shoving it into his locker.

"Bright Eyes! Hey!" He heard an unfamiliar voice yell somewhere down the corridor. He didn't have to look around for too long to find Eren facing a kid, a freshman by the looks of his gloating idiot face. The continuous chattering in the halls drowned out what Eren said, which, unusual, but Levi opted to focus on going to class instead of trying to listen in. No more Eren for today. He was already fed up with all of it.

"Yes, that's right, it was Ackerman who called that Jaeger kid Bright Eyes, I saw it with my own two-" a girl said to the person sitting next to her, but abruptly stopped when she saw Levi walk into class. The girl, Banana or Bynyny or something, shrunk back into her seat and turned invisible as Levi made his way to sit next to the person Chatty Cathy was talking to.

"Levi! My main man! What is this I've been hearing about you starting the dankest of memes the highschool has ever seen?" Hanji asked, blinking all four of their eyes at him with a bright grin on their face.

"Have you been hanging out with that Connie kid again?" Levi murred, kicking the leg of his table.

Hanji pouted, but said nothing more on the matter, knowing that it wasn't wise to pressure Levi when he was in one of his moods, and changed the topic instead.

However, where they dropped it, others picked up the slack. Throughout the day, the Bright Eyes jokes intensified, with their peak being during lunch time. At this point, Levi felt sort of bad watching Eren having to deal with the full brunt of those jokes coupled with small groups of people who wanted to confirm the fact that Eren truly lived up to his nickname.  
With a tray in his hands and continuously stealing glances at Levi (Not that Levi had noticed, because he was obviously busy eating his terribly bland cafeteria food), as if he wanted nothing more than to talk to him, Eren looked stuck between rock and a hard place, which was well enough for Levi.

"Isn't that Eren Jaeger over there?" Erwin asked Levi, having obviously noticed the fact that Levi was blatantly staring at the freshman.  
Levi hated when Erwin started conversations with him like that. It usually meant that any hope of getting through school for the next two weeks without telling Erwin the details would be a pure nightmare. Not because Erwin was the annoying type of person who kept nagging you about it, no, that was Hanji's job. Erwin had the tendency to ask just the right types of questions or say the right types of things, that got deep under your skin, which he did in between friendly smiles that made Levi feel sick to his stomach.

Well, might as well get that out of the way now, rather than indulging Erwin in his psychological warfare.

Levi hummed in response.

"He really wants to talk to you, it seems." Erwin observed, confirming the fact that Levi wasn't just hallucinating Eren's sudden interest in him. Levi shrugged, focusing on his bland sandwich. Erwin shot back a smile and stared intently at him.

"Stop trying to read my mind, Erwin," Levi snapped.

"You've been hiding something for the past months," Erwin said, followed by a "Yeah, I noticed that too!" from Hanji. "I don't need to read your mind to see that." The entire table now had Levi's attention.

Levi grimaced at that and for some reason that was enough for a dawn of realisation to bloom on Erwin's face.

"Oh, Levi," he sighed. Hanji and the rest shot him confused looks, as Levi spied another look at Eren, while quickly but efficiently finishing his sandwich.

"Oh, Levi," Erwin repeated.

"I heard you the first time, Eyebrow Face."

"We could have introduced you two to each other at the very least. He's in the same club as Hanji."

Hanji looked from Erwin to Levi to Eren and finally put one and one together. "That's right!" They exclaimed. "He's a hot piece of ass, by the way, if you know what I mean!"  
They winked seductively. Levi thought it made them look like a beached whale.

As if on cue, Eren literally caught on fire.

The group around him dispersed in panic and Eren was home free. Yet, before Eren could take more than three steps towards Levi's table like he had been meaning to, the foam of a fire extinguisher violently sprayed Eren square in the head.

"Boy, what did I say about catching on fire indoors?" Hannes, coach of the flying football team, had a fire extiguisher in his hands and scolded Eren in a way that sounded awfully fatherly.

"…um, the school can't afford any more fire extinguishers?" A slightly sizzling Eren had uttered as he frustratedly wiped off the foam off his hair and face before it could solidify.

"Exactly!"

There was some scattered laughter among the crowd before they dispersed completely and all that remained by Eren's side was a kid with a bowl cut who seemed to be content with not helping Eren remove bits of foam from his hair; the other one was a girl with a red scarf with whom Eren was practically grappling with as she tried to help him out, but Eren just wasn't letting it happen.

The grappling went on for a while and a squeal came out from Hanji. "He'd make an amazing candle on a birthday cake," they sighed dreamily, probably picturing the bonfire that Eren would cause if they stuck him into a cake.

 _The cutest bonfire for sure_ , Levi thought and narrowed his eyes when Erwin turned to him and gave him one of his patented Knowing Smiles (TM). Fuck him.

That's it, he was leaving. Levi shot one last look at Eren, who seemed to have been trying to get Levi's attention, because as soon as they locked eyes he flailed his arms wildly and tried to charge at him. Which, to no avail once more, when Hannes pressed a broom in his hands and ordered him to "clean that shit off the ground, Bright Eyes!"

Levi cringed inwardly as he left the hall.

 

* * *

 

 

The rest of the day went by with pretty much the same Bright Eyes jokes over and over and by the end of it, Levi was more than ticked off and willing to punch anyone who stood in the way of him and his car.

Once seated behind the wheel, Levi thought he was free, he was unstoppable, he was-

 

[" _Turn around, Bright Eyes_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGaUZcT9Lw)  
  
[ _Every now and then I fall apart_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGaUZcT9Lw)  
  
[ _And I need you now tonight_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGaUZcT9Lw)  
  
[_And I need you more than ever-_ "](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGaUZcT9Lw)

 

\- fucked. He was utterly fucked.

He hit his head on the wheel repeatedly, enunciating every hit with a monotonous "fuck" while the song continued blaring from his radio.

When he finally looked up, he found a small dent at the top of the wheel where Levi had previously hit his head on. He groaned.

This was the worst fucking day of his life.

He turned his head after briefly composing himself, attempting to reverse out of the parking lot, when he heard a smack against the side of his car window. And as if the day couldn't get any worse, it was Eren. Of fucking course it was Eren. He almost fucking ran over his crush. Still partially covered in foam and sweating profusely from all of his pores, Eren removed his hand from the window - Levi noted with distaste that it left a greasy, white hand print on his pristine car - and called out to Levi.

"Can I talk to you for a sec? Please?"

Levi briefly contemplated stepping on the gas, intents which Eren must have noticed because he suddenly looked even more nervous than Levi felt at the moment.  
Were Levi's palms always this sweaty by the way?  
When he finally nodded, Eren beamed and Levi knew he was a goner.

He switched off the radio and lowered the window on the passenger's side by a small margin, nodding his head once more to show that Eren had his undivided attention.

Eren's face flushed when Levi's gaze settled on him.

"I-I wanted to ask you if you could tutor me," he stuttered out.

"Do I look like a math wiz to you?" Levi coolly replied.

"No, no!" Eren hurriedly backtracked. Levi couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in amusement. Even if he just dirtied his car, he was adorable. "I mean, yeah, Hanji told me that you get straight A's in math but that's not what I meant."

"What is it then?"

"I want to get stronger." Eren looked determined as he said it. "And I need your help with that."

"I'm not a personal trainer, Eren."

"I know that."

"Then why are you asking me of all people?"

Eren took a deep breath as Levi patiently waited for him to continue.

"Because your power is your super strength."  
He gave Levi an intense look that would have made a lesser man pee his pants. "That means your powers have the disadvantage of suppressing any efforts to build up muscle mass needed to get stronger, and yet you've bypassed that obstacle somehow."  
His gaze fell on Levi's bare arms. They were shredded as fuck.

  
Levi hummed. "I have."

"I- lately, I've been having similar problems," Eren continued with a small wave of his hands. The words were coming out of his mouth like a waterfall now, like he had somehow managed to talk confidence to himself. Levi couldn't say he wasn't impressed.  
"And it's pissing me off! I feel like I'm stuck or something. And then Armin mentioned that he talked to Hanji about how you've had the same problem but that you've somehow dealt with it and I just- I need to know how."

"Why?"

Eren looked like he was caught off guard. "Why what?"

"Why do you want to get stronger?"

"I... I..."

"Spit it out, kid. I don't have all day," Levi snapped. 

"I want to become strong, because I need to defeat the villains who have destroyed Shiganshina!" If Levi thought that Eren's face couldn't get any more expressive, he was dead wrong when he was met with the pure rage and pain permeating from him.

The incident at Shiganshina 5 years ago was well-known throughout the country, and yet little information was released on what really brought on the city's demise. Official accounts theorized that it was a natural disaster - a hurricane in the middle of the hurricane-free zone.  
Erwin had vehemently disagreed with that theory, claiming that something man-made would have been the only thing that had destroyed Shiganshina, and if Erwin thought something was bullshit, it usually was. Perks of being a psychic and all. 

"So I'm asking you, will you help me?" Eren asked, the earlier expression slowly fading. Levi remained silent for a while, letting the information sink in and contemplated Eren's request. 

Sure, there was no reason for Levi to feel obligated to help him out as the whole ordeal with Shiganshina didn't concern him in the least. But for some reason he couldn't help but admire the fact that Eren had the motivation and the determination to seek out help in achieving his goal, much less by asking Levi.  
And sure, Eren was endearing and all, but maybe Levi could find himself being able detach himself from any feelings he harbored for him, so long as Eren wouldn't end up holding him back from leaving town when the time came and, oh god, just help him already, the kid's been getting way too fidgety to form any coherent thoughts.

"You've got some real guts walking up to me with demands like that," Levi finally said.

Not knowing how to interpret his words, Eren nodded weakly.

"Fine, I'll help you out but I can't assure you that my methods will help you." Levi nodded.  
  
Super powers were extremely finicky, and even though humans had super powers for as long as humanity could remember, much about them was unknown. The reason for that partially lied in the fact that there were millions of different types of super powers with their own quirks. Levi just happened to have a power that was pretty common in society and thus was one of the very first powers that scientists researched. About 2% of the population shared the same super power as Levi.

"Really? I mean, I know that, but I'm glad you still want to tutor me! Thank you!" Eren practically vibrated from happiness despite the fact that Levi hadn't guaranteed for the tutoring to come with any results.

"Yeah, yeah." Levi rolled his eyes and fiddled with the buttons on his dashboard out of nervousness.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Eren smacked his forehead, leaving a dusty white hand print on his face that shouldn't be as adorable as it was. "I'm Eren, nice to meet you!"

"Levi."

"I'm looking forward to training with you, Levi!" Eren practically hugged the side of Levi's car.

A smile tugged on Levi's lips at the sight of a promising student.   
"Me too. C'mon, Eren, I'll drive you home."

Maybe this day wasn't so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I dedicate this fanfic to every author who nicknamed Eren 'Bright Eyes' in their fanfic.  
> The song I'm referring to is called Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler and you can listen to it here:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGaUZcT9Lw
> 
> I made the last half a bit text heavy to add a bit of background story to the whole thing, even though it's just a one-shot lol.


End file.
